New Minnesota Stadium Announces Major Construction Milestones

Stadium Site Storm Water Filtration System Completed; ETFE On Construction Site

(Minneapolis, MN) June 5, 2015 - The new Minnesota Stadium celebrated several major construction milestones this week, showcasing the incredible progress that has taken place with just over a year to go in construction.

The roof ridge truss was connected from east to west which will allow the roof truss to be fully complete in the next few weeks

The concrete topping out was celebrated with a lunch for all construction site workers

The storm water filtration system for the entire stadium site was completed

The transparent ETFE roof material was placed on the construction site and preparations are underway for installation

"Meeting these major milestones is a direct result of the leadership of Mortenson Construction and the hard work by Minnesota construction workers and Minnesota businesses," said Minnesota Sports Facilities chair, Michele Kelm-Helgen. "We look forward to meeting additional milestones that will keep the project on time for our 2016 opening."

The west and east sides of the roof ridge truss were connected for the first time on Thursday by a "chord" of steel. The steel chord that joins the two sides of the roof consists of approximately 12 pieces of steel, which are 50' long and weigh 60,000 lbs. Over the next month, more than 30 pieces of the final roof steel will complete the roof ridge structure.

The concrete "topping out" marks the completion of the structural concrete in the new stadium. More than 1,200 construction workers, executives and staff from Mortenson, Thor Construction, HKS, Inc, the Minnesota Sports Facilities Authority and the Minnesota Vikings celebrated with a lunch on Thursday. Overall, 10,000 concrete trucks delivered 100,000 cubic yards of concrete, which would fill more than 30 Olympic-sized swimming pools.

Construction crews also finished the stadium's storm water filtration system for the entire stadium site. The storm water system utilizes 1,040 linear feet of 12' diameter perforated corrugated metal pipe surrounded by stones. This storm water system will return filtered water back into the watershed rather than sending it into the city's storm water system. The total system treats 21.4 acres with a system volume of 1,133,579 gallons.

The ETFE or ethylene- tetra-fluoro-ethylene panels have arrived on site. Sixty percent, or more than 245,000 square feet of the new stadium's roof will be made up of the extremely light weight panels. The ETFE installation is scheduled to be complete in the fall of 2015.

The new Minnesota Stadium will have 65,000 seats, expandable to 72,000 for special events and will have 1.75 million square feet. The stadium project is more than 50 percent complete with more than $420 million in work completed to date. The project peaked with 18 cranes on site in May, the last tower crane will be dismantled the week of June 8, 2015, clearing the way for the building to be fully closed by November 2015.

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